I am a homeschooler up in the Alaskan bush. I am teaching my Down Syndrome 11 yo son math with Right Start math. I heard about your program through another mother with a DS child who was having success using it. I will confess that I have always found math to be a difficult subject, probably because I did not have it taught to me via the right avenues.
I find your program easy to understand if different from what I have ever seen before. The use of the abacus, finger counting, tally sticks etc. are a novel idea and something my son caught on to immediately. I do find I have to really prepare and read quite extensively before I present a concept to him, one cannot “fly blind” with this program, which is probably true with any method but this one has a unique perspective and I am hoping that by the end of it we will both have learned some good math tools. We started last summer since we take no breaks except for trips and week ends, and are now on lesson 18, we are going into the partitioning lessons. He is finding these a bit abstract but I think that on the whole he is grasping it. My hope is that he will be able to apply these concepts to his everyday activities in time.
Thankyou for your unique perspective and the thought and insight you have put into this method.